Metal and Magic

by Chris Paton

  “I was taken with the other orphans from the mine and sent to a factory in Germany. They needed small children to crawl into tiny spaces and fix the machines. I was one of them, until I grew bigger, which was quite quickly compared to the others.”

  “And what happened then?”

  “I was told to leave. They gave me a little bit of money and suggested I find Herr Wallendorf. Which is exactly what I did.”

  “And you worked for him?”

  “Yep.”

  “On the emissaries?”

  “Not at first. They were a secret project. It's only when they started to get infected with Şteamƙin that I worked on them. Herr Wallendorf was so upset, you see, that his boys, as he called them, had to be thrown away, he wanted someone to at least try to fix them. So I cleaned the pipes, inside and out, took them apart and put them back together – with a little bit of help. But when the emissaries still didn't do as they were told...”

  “They blamed you.”

  “Yep,” said Emilia. She wriggled out from under Luise's arm and slid off the bench. “But,” she said with a shrug. “I found my best friend down among Wallendorf's scrap parts.”

  “Kettlepot.”

  “Exactly.” Emilia beamed. “And now even Fräulein von Ense likes him. She said so, just a moment ago.”

  “I saw her,” Luise said. She tucked the notebook into her pocket and stood up. “Come and introduce me to Kettlepot. Properly, I mean.”

  “All right.”

  The dawn stretched beyond the trees and leaped across the sky, banishing the gloom of lingering night. The Tanfana shone as the sun lit the newly-fashioned sides and a fresh cloud of smoke pillowed out of the smokestack. Emilia took Luise's hand and led her towards the steam train to where Kettlepot was being examined by a small team of engineers under Hannah's watchful eye. The men poked long glass pipettes into the emissary's pipes, squeezing the rubber bulb and drawing, they hoped, a colony of Şteamƙin into the glass tube for transplantation to another emissary. Emilia shook her head as she approached and walked up to the head engineer.

  “It doesn't work like that,” she said. “The Şteamƙin have to want to move into a machine, any machine, but it has to be attractive. You have to make it an attractive place for them to live.”

  “Hmm,” he said and raised an eyebrow. “Let us do our work, Fräulein Ardelean.”

  “No, Franz,” said Hannah. She walked up to where the engineer stood poised to place the pipette into a metal tube for safe-keeping. “Listen to the girl. It was her emissary that made the difference last night. Not yours. I think me can agree that she has something to contribute, ja?”

  Luise tapped Emilia on the shoulder and smiled. Emilia grinned back, crossed her arms across her chest and turned to face the engineer.

  “Very well, Fräulein von Ense. But perhaps the young girl,” he paused to draw out the word girl, “could tell us how to make the other emissaries more attractive?”

  “That's easy enough,” said Emilia. “Fuel them up and have them get as hot as possible – dancing works.”

  “You want to have our controllers lead the emissaries in a waltz? Hah,” the engineer choked as he laughed. His team laughed with him, stopping only when Hannah stepped forward and quietly removed the pipette from the engineer's hand and gripped the lapel of his jacket.

  “You will have all the available emissaries ready to dance thirty minutes from now. The style of dance I leave to you. But let us be clear, Franz,” she said and tightened her grip. “If I don't see the emissaries dance in the next half hour, I will be looking for a new head of engineering and you will be hobbling back home to Germany. Furthermore, I will make it known to Herr Schleiermacher, and Direktor Wallendorf that you obstructed the mission and jeopardised its success. Do I make myself clear?”

  “Ja, Fräulein. Like crystal.”

  “Good,” said Hannah. She let go of the engineer and handed him the pipette. “One more thing,” she said with a twitch of a smile on her lips. “There is a gramophone in the passenger car. It might help you get in the mood.”

  Franz nodded and ordered his men to pack their gear and make their way to the engineering car. Hannah watched them leave and then walked over to join Luise and Emilia.

  “Dancing,” she said, “might just be the thing to lift all our spirits,” she nodded at the men returning from burial duty. “And, if it gives us an army of emissaries that can think for themselves and act like yours did last night, Emilia, well,” Hannah said and laughed. “We can at least have one last waltz before battle.”

  Chapter 20

  The Russian Border

  Imperial Russia

  July, 1851

  The mountains shrank into the pine forests of northern Russia and Hari Singh retched the last remaining contents of his stomach onto the treetops below. He clung to the djinni's arm as the landscape beneath blurred into an endless cushion of green pins and needles. Najma, Hari noticed, was sleeping again, curled within the djinni's oversized palm, conjured for the purpose. Hari closed his eyes and let the wind cool his brow as the waves of nausea receded. He knew they would return. But, for the moment at least, the furious peaks of air sickness were calmed.

  “Not far now, little man,” said the djinni. It had taken Hari some time to adjust to Jamie's alter ego. The two were inextricably combined, and yet their differing traits allowed for some distinction. The djinni was far more impulsive than Jamie, lacking the Englishman's restraint. Jamie, on the other hand, dwelled far too much on matters beyond his control, whereas the djinni was not restricted by such thoughts and could act faster and with greater effect. Hari had need of both and he hoped he could control the one while he appealed to the other. He would find out soon enough.

  “Tell me, djinni,” he said, “what part of you hails from the other dimension, and can you sense it or connect with it?”

  “You want to know?” the djinni said, the deep resonant boom of its voice contained a hint of surprise.

  “Truly, I do.”

  “You bear the anti-djinn mark. Were you not schooled in djinn lore?”

  “Not nearly enough. That is why I ask.”

  The djinni grew quiet, thinking. As the landscape whistled beneath them, Hari felt a tapping upon his mind, as if the djinni was knocking on the door and asking to be allowed in.

  “What do you want, djinni?”

  “I want to show you that dimension – my world. It is far too difficult to explain. Will you allow it?”

  “What will happen to me if I do?”

  “Nothing,” the djinni said.

  A wave of gratitude seemed to flow over and through Hari, as if the djinni was surprised to be asked to reveal its origins. The emotion left Hari with the feeling that the djinni was more interested in answering Hari's question than penetrating his mind with a horse like the one used in Troy. Hari answered the knock and opened his mind to the djinni.

  All traces of motion sickness were expelled from Hari's body as the djinni entered his mind in a pall of thin smoke, spinning with tiny lights and flashes of memory. Hari reached out with his mind and cupped the flash closest to him and was transported into a cave of water, the walls swirling into a form that could be pressed and touched but not penetrated. The walls curved as Hari walked on the sheet of water rippling between them, altering direction as he changed his course as the memory flash in his hand blistered with an impulse of tiny pricks against the palm of his left or right hand leading Hari deeper inside the water cave.

  Hari entered a room with a vessel upon a pillar of ice, the water at its base frosted with frazil ice, splintering its way across the floor. The memory flash tickled Hari's palms until he opened his fingers and it flew to the ice pillar where it twirled in a circle around the top. Hari stepped forwards and leaned over the top of the pillar, flat and reflective, it mirrored what he knew of himself, flashing images of his own life before him, before it rippled with unfamiliar faces that Hari realised were not from his past, but Jamie's
. The origin of djinn, he remembered, must begin with the vessel, and for the vessel to become djinn, there must be pain. Hari watched as the pain of Jamie's life was revealed. He watched as Jamie stole the locket from his mother, sold it for booze and then fought to get it back again. It was the same locket Jamie had given Hari to give to Luise – to win her trust. Other images, some more challenging to watch than others, rippled across the surface of the pillar until they were gone and Hari felt his stomach lurch as the floor and walls of the cave disappeared in an explosive mist, and he was surrounded once more by impulses of energy and flashes of memory.

  Hari caught another and his mind turned black. The memory tickled his palm but did not favour one direction over another, and Hari could see no point of reference upon which he could navigate. He was alone in a cold, blank, black world. The void, as he imagined it, began to reverberate with a thrum of noise, like a thin sheet of brass whipped up and down in the air. He spun his body to find the source of the noise and saw the shadow of a black circle grow in the distance until it was a hole, a tear in the void. He was drawn to it, and heard the whispers and screams of a mad man trapped within a tube, and yet, it wasn't a tube. Hari knew exactly what it was as he drew nearer to the hole and felt himself sucked into a conduit, a pit, the pit of the djinn. Was he moving from top to bottom, or from the base upwards? Hari could not say, but the whispers and cries increased and Jamie's emaciated, naked form, dirty and pale, sharpened within his tubular vision and Hari merged with the Englishman.

  The void was a place of refuge, calm, calmer even than the soothing surf of the water cave. With every second Hari spent in Jamie's body, he longed for the void, to be free of the chaos within the man. No, not a man, a vessel. He wanted to be free of the vessel, he tore at the walls of skin, flesh and bone. His fingernails scored Jamie's bones, and the flesh beneath Jamie's skin clung to the space between his nails and the tips of his fingers. And then he understood. The vessel versus the void.

  Hari willed the djinni to let him be free of the vessel. Either that, he tried to speak but thought the words instead, give me a new memory instead. I cannot bear this.

  “And neither can I, little man,” said the djinni. Hari opened his eyes at the sound and realised he was in the djinni's arms once more, flying above the taiga.

  “I think I understand now, djinni.”

  “You know the vessel?”

  “I think so. Yes.”

  “And you understand the need to be free of it...”

  “To be in the void, to long for the void...”

  “Yes, the void, but to be free of the vessel, that is enough.”

  “Is it always like that? When you are inside the vessel.”

  “Yes,” the djinni said and was silent once more.

  Hari didn't press the djinni. Thoughts of being trapped inside Jamie's skin reeled within his mind and Hari had to pinch his arm to remind himself of where he was. Never had he felt so glad for a returning wave of sickness. Hari retched again, pleased to be free.

  “You are still sick, Nightjar?” said Najma as she stirred within the djinni's palm.

  “Truly,” Hari said and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. “I am blessed.”

  “Blessed? That doesn't make any sense.”

  “Never mind. How are you? Are you rested?”

  “Yes, quite rested. Where are we?”

  “The djinni says we are close. We crossed the border some time ago, I think.” Hari tried to remember, but had no recollection of how much time he had spent in the cave, the void or the vessel.

  “We are getting closer,” said the djinni. “Arkhangelsk lies to the west. Along the road, down there, between the trees of the forest.”

  Najma and Hari looked down towards the road. Galloping ahead of a small cloud of dust was a rider upon a horse. Najma gasped as she recognised the man.

  “Bryullov,” she said and reached for the Lightning Jezail. Slung across her chest, the rifle was pinned between her body and the djinni's hand. “Djinni, release your grip. Let me get to my rifle.”

  “You will fall,” the djinni said. “I cannot let that happen.”

  “Then take us down to the road,” said Hari. “We must talk with that man.”

  The djinni slowed and sank towards the road. The treetops softened as they descended and the smell of pine needles in midsummer filled the warm air. The smoke beneath the djinni coiled into two great legs and large, flat feet. Hari dropped to the road and stumbled around the djinni as Najma fiddled with the sling of her rifle. Hari gripped the barrel and shook his head as the rider's mount reared and whinnied twenty feet in front of the djinni.

  “Steady now,” Bryullov called to the horse as he struggled to settle it. “Easy now.”

  Najma wrestled the rifle from Hari's grip as the djinni twisted into Jamie's naked form. With the djinni gone, the horse lowered its front legs and the rider walked it from one side of the road to the other as he stared at the three unlikely travellers before him.

  “What is this?” he said. “And where did you come from?”

  “I can explain,” said Hari with a look at Najma. “Lower your rifle.”

  “Najma?” the man said as he fought to control his horse.

  “Yes,” she said. “And I intend to kill you, Kapitan Bryullov.”

  “Well,” Bryullov laughed. “That seems to be in keeping with the rest of my day.” He lifted his leg, slid out of the saddle and landed on the road. Bryullov wrapped the reins around the pommel of the saddle and let the horse wander to side of the road where it calmed itself with a mouthful of long, green grass. “And who do you have with you?” He peered around Hari and laughed again. “The Englishman? I see life has not treated you well at all, Jamie Hanover. However, I honestly thought you would be dead, so this is quite a surprise.”

  “That's one word for it,” said Jamie.

  “And the Nightjar? Hari Singh. It's really you?”

  “Truly.”

  “Well,” Bryullov said and ran his hand through his hair. “I would never have imagined such a meeting. The four of us. Together again. In Russia. Incredible.”

  “And yet,” said Jamie. “Here we are, naked as the day we were born. Some of us, at least.”

  Bryullov slid his hand behind his back and took a step forwards. Najma took hold of the charging handle and began to crank it.

  “Stop that now, Najma,” Bryullov said as he pulled the pistol from his belt and pointed it at Hari. “Stop that or I clip the Nightjar's wings.”

  “You can do that,” Hari said and spread his arms with his palms open. “Or we can talk.”

  “What about?”

  “Arkhangelsk. We need to get inside the city.”

  “Really?” Bryullov lowered the pistol. “You are too late. I have just come from there. The Cossacks are about to lay siege to the gates.”

  “No,” said Najma. “It is you who is too late. This,” she said and raised the Lightning Jezail, “is for my brother.”

  Chapter 21

  The Gates of Arkhangelsk

  Arkhangelsk Oblast

  July, 1851

  “Mishka is dead?” Ivan said and thumped his fist on the blackwood crate he was using as a desk. “I don't believe it.”

  “I am sorry, Ivan,” Stepan said.

  “And Bryullov? He escaped?”

  “Da,” said Lena. “I should have shot him in the heart, not the arm. He will pay.”

  “Maybe,” Ivan said and sighed. “I will miss Mishka. We must take care of his family. But first,” he said and gestured towards the door of the canvas tent. “Let me show you what we have done since you have been away.” Ivan took two pistols from the crate and stuffed them into his belt. “Come, let us see how preparations are going.”

  The Cossack numbers had swelled since Stepan had met Ivan on the riverbank. He scanned the plain leading to the city gates and estimated that no less than two hundred Cossack men and women were laying siege to the city, digging trenches and lighti
ng fires to cook over. Lena pointed at the walkers Ivan had captured. They were positioned to the east and west of the city, with a band of Cossack sharpshooters on each and a reluctant Russian driver bound with rope to the driving seat. Scouts rode in and out of the camp with reports fielded by Ivan's officers and processed into bite-sized chunks to be delivered at the evening briefing around the campfire. Stepan recognised the familiar shape of the Puckle Gun, the rapid firing machine gun the Cossacks called the Drakon. Two Cossacks lifted it while a third repositioned the tripod in a better position. The men lowered the gun and sighted it on the gates of the city.

  “Arkhangelsk is secure,” said Ivan. “No one gets in or out.”

  “From the land,” said Stepan. “What about the river?” He pointed at the crimson hulls of the transport ships sailing in and out of the city. “This will be a very long siege if we do not control the river.”

  “I leave that to you,” Ivan said and thumped Stepan on the shoulder. “Of course, I would like your long rifle on top of one of the walkers, but I think your other skills are needed to close the river.”

  “You are thinking of the submersibles?”

  “Da,” Ivan nodded. “I will give you three men. The best. You enter the city tonight.”

  “Three men? That will make four – one too many for the submersible.”

  Lena fidgeted beside Stepan.

  “Two then. I will choose them myself.”

  “I will go with him,” Lena said and tucked her fingers into the broad belt at her waist.

  “Nyet,” Ivan said and stabbed his finger towards the ground. “You will stay here.” He gave Lena a look that Stepan recognised – the look of a father. But a quick glance at Lena confirmed her place on his team as she scowled at Ivan.

  “I know the city as well as the Kapitan. I am the perfect choice.”

  “But you are my daughter. What will I tell your mother if you are killed? Eh?”

  Lena took a breath. “The same thing you will tell Mishka's mother.”

  “Lena,” Ivan said and sighed. He shook his head, his gaze lingering on the gunpowder and dirt smudging his daughter's cheeks. “Be grateful you only have a boy,” he said to Stepan.